Category: Train of thoughts

Hey reader! Yes, you! Alright, I know you’re busy with “life” – completing some project, busy rescheduling an office meeting, tired thinking what to cook for lunch/dinner, or busy studying. Now since you’ve read so much, take a moment more to read the rest of it, please…

Quickflashback:

Remember childhood days? When school was all about writing number names 1 to 100 in your book? Or when Maths was done in those square-lined notebooks? That school picnic with friends at some nearby fun garden? The eager wait to get done with final exams so you can go to grandma’s place during summer vacations? Playing in the puddles during rain? Falling down while playing and getting back up like it was a regular thing? Or, or, waiting for that one ice cream vendor to make rounds so you could have your favorite ice cream!?

Now back to reality. Try remembering the last time you felt such child-like enthusiasm?

Let me break it to you: you haven’t.

Or maybe you have – for that last Goa trip with friends, or the spontaneous movie plan during the weekend. But believe me, that has no match with the excitement that the 10-year-old-you would have felt on receiving 2 toffee bars from your best friend in class on his/her birthday. (Because the rest of the class received only one!)

The point, dear reader, is that you’re messed up. As am I. Everyone is! In this age of Instagram and Snapchat, we have forgotten what inner joy feels like. We have made our general existence so patterned – high school, university, degree, job, marriage, kids, death – that even a slight detour makes us think twice!

Weekend plans seem a bore now, family becomes routine, education is full of pressure, and the loans. Oh God, the loans!

So in such pressuring times, a trip out of town, say, is merely an escape. An “escape” mind you, not happiness. Even before the trip begins, somewhere deep down in our mind we already begin contemplating the number of days this “escape” is going to last. Because the moment it does, we must get back to work.

Basically, anxiety of something that hasn’t even arrived yet! And just like that, 50% of the enthusiasm vanishes! We are constantly afraid of our own life routines! We hate it!

So here’s what I have to say to you.

Next time, go to a public park and see the kids climbing a pile of mud only to come back sliding down – learn unabashed giggling!

Or better yet, visit your grandma during a weekend and give her a kiss on the cheek. See her eyes shine with love and affection – learn simple happiness!

Maybe wake your best friend up in the middle of the night, go out on a drive just to have a Subway sandwich – learn absolute stupidity!

Don’t let that building manager decide if you’re “too old” to be swinging on the swings of your building park.

As kids, nobody ever stopped us for acting crazy. It was a given. As if it was our job to be crazy if we’re kids. But why let that define you? You can be a mature kid. A childish adult. And a crazy old person!

Live life on your own terms. Laugh with it. And most importantly, love it!

You know what makes you write? It isn’t inspiration. It’s this dire need to get something out of you. The escapist in you comes alive when you write.

Now don’t think of “escapist” as a negative word. No. Escapism is a feeling. A feeling of either escaping, heart and soul, into the place that you’re at; or escaping away from it. And I assure you, the latter is a most terrible feeling!

Do you know what home feels like? Secure. Free. Even if you’re lost, you know you have people and places around you that will make you feel found again.

Do you know how feeling the totally opposite of that is like?Like you’re trapped in the ruins of an ancient monument. And this monument resides in a civilised, alive, inhabited land. There are places and people that just might make you feel at home. Except, you are still lost. Lost like you’ll never be found again. Like this new land with ruins of a monument has no outwardly connections to the world that you have known growing up.

And you can hear voices, that tell you that all of this will go away. That you’ll find home again. But you just can’t seem to agree with it.

Incidentally, it is also night time and the Moon is full. Yellow. Like it’s almost slyly telling you that it has finally owned all of the light it ever borrowed from the sun. And now the sun is exhausted. The night will never see the day. Nothing will be the same.

And this leads to escapisim out of a given place. The escapism you can do anything for.